We Made This Business (More Than) Quadruple Their Monthly Profits

04 Nov We Made This Business (More Than) Quadruple Their Monthly Profits

One of the things I love most is sharing a success story. In the middle of the summer, I was contacted by a business woman I’ll call Angela. Angela has been a successful esthetician for 30+ years, and over the past three years, she launched a line of lotions, and related health and beauty products. Her products are in the “super-premium” end of the market, retailing for an average price of $75 per bottle, going all the way up to $150 per bottle.

She was at the end of her wits, trying to make her Shopify store successful, but she kept hitting walls. No matter how many ads she ran, no matter what “SEO specialist” she hired, her business just wouldn’t go any higher than $3,500-4,000 a month in gross sales. When Angela reached out to me, she was frustrated, and tired of getting scammed by people who promised numbers they could never deliver upon.

For some business owners, you just throw in the towel, accept your $3,500 a month and move on. After all, $3,500 – that’s a perfectly respectable number. For Angela though, it wasn’t enough – she really believes in her products, and she knew there was room to grow. So, I sat down on a long conference call, and I asked a ton of questions. I listened. That’s something I think I need to stress that makes Mustang Morris different.

Listening is the most important part of the process.

If I’m going to make your business grow, I have to know what really makes it tick. With Angela, that meant understanding who her customers and clients were, knowing how they liked to shop, and why they returned. I even ordered some high end lotion for my face. In case you’re wondering, yeah, it did restore a luxurious glow to my face. Anyway, I digress…

Here are the hard numbers: In September, Angela hit $3,200 in sales on Shopify. Sigh.

In October, she was pacing for about $4,000. Through October 12th, she was at $1,955 for the month.

That’s when we switch her site over, and kicked the boom-machine into full gear. What’s a “boom-machine”, you ask?

On October 14th, I turned on the boom machine. From October 14th-30th, Angela’s new WordPress+WooCommerce site logged…

$8,637 in gross sales.

That’s just 15 days of sales. Not even a full month. That would have put her at roughly $16,000 dollars gross monthly sales, had we run a full month.

Daaaaaaaaaayum.

For the month of November, just six days in, Angela’s business is pacing to do over $21,000 in gross sales. No, that’s not a typo. But wait, there’s more: She’s spending less on advertising than she ever has, so her net profits per bottle are actually increasing. (Although, I’m going to be running a Black Friday super-promo, so there is really no telling how much that will boost sales. I might f**k around and hit $30,000 in one month. I’m not even kidding.)

So, how’d we do it?

1. Understand customer usage. Simply put – if you use lotion every day, it’s going to run out. When it’s about to run out, you might want to target that customer, right? Right.

It seems like a simple concept, but it’s something that Angela wasn’t doing. So, I made her an email template, and help her target recent customer by specific email groups. If a certain set of customers is using daily sunblock, know how often they order, and pre-preemptively hit ’em with a coupon, making sure they don’t run out and end up with a competitor’s product when they actually want your stuff.

2. Customer loyalty programs.

Her site now features a “points system” that rewards customers for purchases. Points can be redeemed for products. It’s that simple.

3. CRM switchover.

Not all CRM systems are built the same. I moved Angela to a system that she can better manage and understand – that allows for better customer targeting for her business.

4. We gotta change that CMS, homegirl.

I’m not saying Shopify sucks for everyone, but it does suck for most people. So, we moved her to WordPress + WooCommerce, and integrated it with TradeGecko. Her fulfillment and bookkeeping are now easier, and orders go out more quickly.

5. A complete marketing change.

I have to keep some things proprietary, but we cut her budget from $1,000 a month, to $610 per month, and saw conversions actually increase month over month.

6. Trackable coupon codes.

You’d think it’s a simple and logical thing, but people dig coupons. So find your highest markup items, and discount them a little. It’s not rocket science.

What did we learn here?

I’m not here to just “make a website” and leave you alone. Web business is hard, and it’s a complete system. When you put your complete trust in how we work, we’ll make you more money. I guarantee it, because my name goes on every site we do.